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Comment by Spivak | Hacker News Reader

Cutting off communication during protests is a great litmus test for identifying authoritarian regimes. So great to see Macron going down that path. Even if you don't actually do it threatening it carries the same weight, fall in line or I'll do it is just doing it. Can't say it's unexpected, it's not like France has a history of contesting government working out well for them /s

The fact that he called out Snapchat and TikTok is basically all you need to know that he doesn't believe it will work and is just targeting the social media of young people.

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These were not 'protests' but senseless riots with huge damage to property, looting, and direct assault on police and elected representatives.

He does not suggest cutting communication during peaceful protests.

Every Government that is faced with situations such as these would qualify the protests as "property, looting, and direct assault on police". It's often half the truth.

If this wasn't a Western country, media would be speaking of ethnic conflict, of the Government led by the leader elected by the white majority of the country enacting more authoritarian measures to quell social unrest.

(Some) rioters voiced exactly these three goals themselves, on record, no government involved.

Peaceful protests without the threat of escalation are 5Ks with signs. A group that is willing to literally burn it all down is the living proof that what your actions/policies have done made it so they have nothing to lose. If you're willing to install an authoritarian regime over everyone in your country to snuff out who you consider to be rebels you've become the empire.

You don't have to cave to their demands, and it's expected that the powers that be will try to arrest them but the rioters are assumed to be desperate, the standing government is held to a higher standard.

Apparently, enforcing the law and individual rights as set out by a democratic republic is now trying to install an authoritarian regime. Oy vey...

No, the installing an authoritarian regime is taking control of public communications for everyone to stop rioters.

Peace doesn't get you very far unless you have some other type of leverage to apply. My country is quite proud and eager to bring up one of its founding events in which a coordinated group of thugs dawned disguises and destroyed a few million in 2023 dollars worth of property (tea).

If you want changes you need to break some shit and bash a few redcoats. Same thing happened in the 60s, Congress passed civil rights legislation because shit was burning and was going to continue burning if they didn't.

> He does not suggest cutting communication during peaceful protests.

What I've witnessed first hand+ and some friends suffered++ is that "peaceful protest" is not a useful metric anymore. Police action is completely indiscriminate and overboard.

+ a dozen people walking back home together down a street, 6 vans chock full of police forces raced to them out of nowhere, swatted them with an entirely uncalled for volume of tear gas and rubber bullets with zero warning, grabbed a few and flew away.

++ they have been protesting peacefully, then gathered for a picnic in a park, sat in the middle of families and all, got tailed by police forces that told them in unfriendly terms to move away "or else", which they could not because they were surrounded and none would let them pass, then immediately proceeded to indiscriminately teargas the whole place on grounds of refusal to comply, grabbing a bunch of fleeing people.

> senseless

Maybe if the police didn't kill anybody none of this would have happened.

> direct assault on police

The citizens are showing exactly the same restraint of the police?

> and elected representatives

There's a joke that goes something like, "When did the French Revolution end? Soon!"

Your concern is the restraint against the police? When the riot is burning down the houses of innocents, robbing them and even taking their lives?

The kid's dead. Settle the issue with the police in court, but keep the innocents out of this. People are far too focused on what's already lost, while ignoring what's about to be lost.

> Your concern is the restraint against the police? When the riot is burning down the houses of innocents, robbing them and even taking their lives?

What I find ironic is that the French Revolution, with its execution of the previous government, gave birth to the conditions for modern property rights to exist [0].

I find it double ironic since my country is founded from a riot triggered by state violence [1].

[0]: https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/james-c-scott-seeing...

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Tea_Party

You know the government enabled these riots right? They were able to shut them down as quickly too.

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